Joe Montana Football (Mediagenic)
From Sega Retro
- For other versions, see Joe Montana Football.
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| Joe Montana Football |
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| System(s): Sega Mega Drive |
| Publisher: Sega of America |
| Developer: Mediagenic |
| Planned release date(s): 1991 |
| Genre: Sports |
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Joe Montana Football, also known as Hyperball, is an unreleased Sega Mega Drive American football game developed by Mediagenic and endorsed by Joe Montana. Commissioned by Sega of America as one of the earliest big-title sports games on the newly-released Sega Genesis, this version was intended to be entirely developed by Mediagenic as a conversion of Hard Yardage[1] for the platform. However, as that developer was currently experiencing significant financial difficulties, production slowed to a crawl. With development only having progressed to about 30%, Sega of America pulled the plug and was forced to look elsewhere - resulting in a collaboration with Electronic Arts and Park Place Productions for the released Joe Montana Football.
History
At the time, Sega did not have the facilities in the United States to develop a Mega Drive game from scratch, and had to seek outside developers - with three separate development studios working on the Joe Montana project.[2] Among these was Mediagenic, who were attempting to convert their previous title, Hard Yardage, for this purpose.[1] However, quality concerns saw development entirely restarted[3], with Sega of America instead approaching Electronic Arts with the intention of licensing their upcoming John Madden Football. While this deal fell through[3], Electronic Arts did allow a stripped-down use of their American football engine (developed by Park Place Productions) for the final game.[2][4]
Magazine articles
- Main article: Joe Montana Football (Mediagenic)/Magazine articles.
External links
- Behind the Design: Joe Montana Football article by Ken Horowitz at Sega-16